Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Anytime I feature a TV news operation in Houston that is not a television station, my broadcast working readers suddenly see a career escape strategy. While I have no idea if this place has job openings right now, you might take notice for the future.

Energy Flow Network or EFN is an online video operation that launched months ago in Houston. This new shop is TV news for the energy world. As you probably know, Houston is in the center of the energy universe.

EFN produces U.S. and global energy market information, which covers a wide array of topics from energy commodity insight, daily breaking news, energy price analysis, long-range weather forecasting, geopolitical perspectives, market psychology, cross commodities, currency relationships to energy, economics, upstream, mid-stream, downstream and as I'm typing this I don't even know what all this means, if you are still reading to this point, hopefully you do as this long and winding sentence finally comes to an end.

Now longtime Houston media watchers might know this is not the first time the Bayou City has hosted such an operation.

Natural gas pipeline company, Williams (also the namesake for the tallest Houston building outside of downtown that I still like to call Transco), bowed EnergyNewsLive.com in October 2000 which was way ahead of its time in the pre-broadband days. Remember what it was like trying to watch a 30 second clip of pixelized video back then? Anyways, the site shut down in 2002.

I'd say these days certainly would be more favorable to a niche video network. Hopefully EFN won't have a SnapChat account.

What makes EFN so effin' cool in my book is the addition of one Mr. Pat Fant. Fant has become an inspiration to me over the years. This is why I digitally stalk him to see what he's working on now. Fant was the creator of 101 KLOL. He then restored the station to great heights in the 80s and 90s. Proving lightning can strike twice, Fant also created The Buzz. You will see waaaayyy more about Fant in my upcoming KLOL documentary...in final edit now since you asked.

Fant, along with Alan "PetroDamus" Lammey, who have hosted an energy radio show together, will be contributors to EFN. You can watch some of their work below. It's definitely not your average, boring energy coverage.

I just cut the cord so I only get web service now. Upon plugging my TV up to an antenna, I picked up around 100 channels in the Houston airwaves. Most are total crap. What's worse is that all these low power stations have a ton of sub-channels with nothing on them. Some are actual color bars with a rent me sign on them.

I've said it before, if I can find investors like EFN did, maybe I should lease one of these sub-channels for my blog. Mike McGuff TV has a nice ring to it. You, me and five of the viewers who might watch it could have a dandy time together.

The best thing that could happen is that I'd do a live call in show and Richard or Sal would prank me. Hit 'em in the Hein.